Texas City Places $10,000 “Bathroom Bounty” on Trans People
Odessa, Texas, now allows people to sue transgender individuals for at least $10k if they enter or use gender-affirming restrooms.
The city council of Odessa, Texas, passed a “bathroom ban” that disallows transgender individuals from using restrooms in public buildings that don’t match their assigned sex at birth.
The measure, approved by a 5-2 vote, expands a 1989 ordinance prohibiting individuals from entering restrooms of the opposite biological sex.
Under the updated ordinance, the city can seek fines of up to $500 against anyone violating the law. Those who enter facilities not designated for their assigned sex at birth will face misdemeanor trespassing charges, reported the Texas Tribune.
The ordinance also allows individuals to sue those who enter the “wrong” restroom for at least $10,000, as well as additional damages for “harm” and all court costs and attorneys’ fees associated with bringing such a lawsuit.
The ban applies to “any building, facility, or space owned, leased, or controlled by, or leased to, the city of Odessa.”
These include community centers, libraries, airports, park facilities, and administrative office buildings. It contains exceptions for parents of the opposite sex who are accompanying minors under age 12, maintenance and custodial workers, law enforcement officials, and medical emergency staff. However, there is no exception for caretakers of the opposite sex who wish to accompany disabled people into the restrooms.
Those in favor of the ordinance argued that it was necessary to protect the safety of women and children in intimate spaces. Opponents argued the measure was unnecessarily divisive and amounted to placing a “bounty” on transgender individuals who use gender-affirming facilities.
“It is not only unnecessary but also a complete waste of the city’s time, money and resources,” Alexander Ermeels, the president of PFLAG’s Midland and Odessa chapter and a transgender man, said during public testimony. “It’s not addressing any real problem in our community. Instead, it’s creating one, making people worried about something that just is not an issue.”
The ordinance is considered one of the most extreme measures passed by a local government and comes amid a push from Texas lawmakers to push legislation restricting the rights or visibility of LGBTQ Texans.
LGBTQ advocates believe it may also inspire state lawmakers to pass a similar statewide ordinance imposing a public bathroom ban, allowing litigious Texans to police the actions of transgender individuals in exchange for a financial windfall.
Mayor Javier Joven — who lost his re-election bid — campaigned on support for the law, although he claimed at the time that the city would not encourage law enforcement officers to monitor residents using public restrooms or keep track of the gender of the people entering such spaces.
Jonathan Saenz, the president of the conservative think tank Texas Values, testified that the ordinance would withstand legal scrutiny. However, Brian Klosterboer, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Texas chapter, said the ordinance will likely lead to costly legal challenges — as the city, unlike the state legislature, is not protected by sovereign immunity.
As transgender advocate and journalist Erin Reed noted on her “Erin in the Morning” Substack, Florida and Utah are currently the only states with public bathroom bans for adults that carry explicit penalties for violating the law.
Other states, including North Dakota, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, have bans that restrict transgender people from using gender-affirming restrooms in K-12 schools and some, but not all, government buildings — but lack clear penalties for violations.
Johnathan Gooch, the communications director for LGBTQ group Equality Texas, characterized the ordinance as extremely stringent and said it would place transgender individuals — who enjoy no legal protections against discrimination — at higher risk of discrimination.
He warned that the promise of a “bounty” might prompt some Texans to sue cisgender individuals who fail to adhere to gender norms or stereotypes of dress or appearance — leaving them with mounting legal bills, even if they are found to have done nothing wrong.
“It’s a very aggressive way to alienate trans people from public life, and I think it is counter to the spirit of friendship that most Texans embody,” he told the Tribune. “It enables vigilantes just to target anyone that they don’t think matches the type of gender expression they expect to see in the bathroom, and that is truly insane.”
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